Urban Skills Portal

Quick and simple graphics

How to create graphics by hand

Two exercises show you how to create a hand-

drawn sketch and a hand-drawn figure-ground
diagram.

Dont forget clean

hands make clean
drawings.
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Simple built environment illustrations
prepared by hand can be quick,
informative and sometimes attractively
informal.
Hand drawing can also be a useful way
of creating a figure-ground, for example
when you want to make a figure-ground
from a historical plan, to shown a places
historical development.
The next two exercises will help
you prepare a figure-ground of the
Bloomsbury area of London, and a
drawing of one or two views of Gordon
Street/Gordon Square.
You will need the following:
Black fibre-tip pens. For the sketch,
nib width around 0.3mm for the basic
drawing, and a thicker one (around
0.8mm) for emphasising the more
important lines. For the hand-drawn
figure-ground, around 0.3mm for the
outline and around 0.8mm for filling in.
A few sheets of A4 tracing paper or
overlay paper.
Dont forget clean
hands make clean
drawings.
A roll of masking tape.
A sheet of ordinary A4 paper.
Once you have downloaded the
images from UCLeXtend and have the
equipment, you will be ready to start the
hand-drawing exercise.
Hand-drawn figure-ground
On a suitable desk, lightly tack the
Bloomsbury; London plan to your work
surface.
Place a piece of tracing or overlay paper
over the plan and tack this sheet down to
the table with masking tape.
Look carefully at the plan to see which
lines represent the outlines of buildings.
Using your pen, carefully trace these
lines.
To avoid smudging, you may find it easier
to work from left to right across the page
if you are right handed, or from right to
left if you are left handed. Having the
piece of A4 paper under your hand may
help to avoid smudging.
Depending on the effect and degree of
informality you want to create, you might
want to make your lines as straight and
even as possible, or slightly wobbly and
informal.
When you have drawn all the outlines of
the buildings, fill them in with solid black
Urban Skills Portal
using a thicker pen.
If you have a scanner, scan this drawing.
If you do not have a scanner, you can
take a photo of the drawing with your
mobile phone or digital camera, and save
the image to your computer.
Save the scan or photograph as a
.jpg file so that it can be used in other
applications.
Hand-drawn sketch
Print the two images: View along Gordon
Street 1; and View along Gordon Street 2.
These images are set up for A4 printing.
They can be printed in either black and
white or colour.
On a suitable desk, lightly tack one of the
images of Gordon Street to your work
surface. You can use a small piece of
masking tape at each corner to do this.
Place a piece of tracing or overlay paper
over the image. Align the sides and
corners as closely as possible. Tack this
Dont forget clean
hands make clean
drawings.
sheet down to the table with masking
tape.
Using your pen, carefully copy the main
lines formed by the buildings, the street
and any other features on to your tracing
or overlay paper. You do not have to draw
every line you see: just as many as is
necessary to give a useful impression of
the form and appearance of this part of
Gordon Street.
As with the hand-drawn figure-ground,
depending on the effect and degree of
informality you want to create, you might
want to make your lines as straight and
even as possible, or slightly wobbly and
informal. You might make all the lines of
the same weight (thickness), or you might
make the more important lines thicker to
emphasise the most basic aspects of the
shapes.
You now have a perspective sketch of the
street. What are horizontal lines in reality
will appear in the drawing as though they
converge on an imaginary point on the
horizon. The human eye and a camera
lens both have this effect of making
horizontal lines look as though they
converge.
If you have a scanner, scan this drawing.
If you do not have a scanner, you can
take a photo of the drawing with your
mobile phone or digital camera, and save
the image to your computer. Save the
scan or photograph as a .jpg file so that it
can be used in other applications.